


Out of the Dead Land

by owl_coffee



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: Angst, Heroism, M/M, Poem: The Waste Land - T.S. Eliot, boys who don't talk about their feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24288877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owl_coffee/pseuds/owl_coffee
Summary: How Caine won - and lost - his wings.
Relationships: Stinger Apini & Caine Wise, Stinger Apini/Caine Wise
Kudos: 8





	Out of the Dead Land

**Winter kept us warm.**

Nitrogen-snow drifts down around them as the battle rages on, disrupting sight-lines and forcing a reliance on automated scopes. The Bugs are smart enough to realise this gives them an advantage and press forward, viciously attacking the Legion stragglers as they boost into the air. For once, Caine isn't among them - he's in the vanguard, escorting the Entitled aboard the dreadnought away from here. In the upper atmosphere things are deceptively quiet, just the sound of radio chatter and the rasp of his own breathing inside the helmet.

Caine sees one bright-flashing Skyjacker manoever lower and boldly fire below them, taking out a score of Bugs as he does and clearing their way. The Entitled enters her ship safely, hangar doors closing. But a stray shot flickers through and the Skyjacker's - quick as that - pinwheeling away and down to the planet's surface, one wing gone.

"Captain!" shouts the splice next to Caine, and the radio lights up with the keening sounds of the troop mourning. 

Suddenly, without knowing why he's doing it, Caine dives toward the falling splice. His gravity-boots protest, not intended for a landing like this, but he presses onward anyway until he can see the Skyjacker with his own eyes, not just sensors, tumbling down with his one remaining wing dragging his fall into dizzying circles.

Caine flings out a webbing lasso, managing to snag the falling Skyjacker with a wrenching jolt that almost dislocates his shoulder. Now they're falling together at nearly the same speed as before. His boots can't keep up with the shifting weight, that damned wing tumbling them both so he can't even point his feet in the right direction. 

"Lose the wing!" Caine snarls over his suit radio, but the Skyjacker must be unconscious in there because he doesn't respond. Or maybe his comm's dead too. 

Caine claws his laser knife out of its holster and begins to saw away at the point where the Skyjacker's remaining wing attaches to his body. The insect-style wing gets in his face, brushing against Caine's helmet with a rasping metallic sound as Caine cuts at the base.

An incoherent groan of pain comes through his comm from the Skyjacker. Then the splice ineffectually tries to shove Caine away, damaged servos making the movement weak and useless.

"Hold still, damn it," Caine says, half-way through the golden translucent surface of the wing. There are veins in it that are tougher, harder to saw through, his knife is whirring with the effort. He tries not to pay too much attention to the planet looming up in his visor. He can make out continents of ice, now, pale orange mountains waiting for them.

Finally, finally the knife snaps through the last connection and the wing tears away, scattering droplets of ichor. His Skyjacker seems to be unconscious again, slumped into the webbing loops. Caine gets a firmer grip on the splice, is able to trigger his grav-boots in the right direction at last.

Their fall doesn't seem to be slowing.

The atmosphere around them is becoming heavy, flaring up with the heat of re-entry as they fall lower. These suits weren't built for that, either. Caine pushes his feet toward the planet's surface, grimaces with the effort. 

"Maximum override," he says to his suit systems. 

"Maximum override engaged. Diverting power from life support systems," his suit says calmly. The ground below looks very near, now. The edges of Caine's vision are whiting out.

"Fuck," says Caine as they drop.

**forgetful snow**

Caine wakes to the sound of a plaintive alarm in his helmet. He can't feel his legs. He can't see anything - the suit feels like it's completely covered with a heavy blanket. It's dark inside here, only the lights of his helmet HUD visible. Dizzy, his instincts tell him that Up is somehow below him. Like a blind puppy he burrows toward the surface, dragging himself through the powdery snow until light bursts against his helmet in a blinding revelation.

He has to lie there on the surface and gasp for a moment, just occupied with moving air into his lungs. A tangled skein of his webbing is buried under further drifts of snow, and Caine realises with exhaustion that the splice he rescued must be buried down there. If he's even still alive. 

Grimly determined, Caine starts shoveling snow with his hands, digging down until he reaches a smooth helmet, neck and shoulders he can haul out bodily from the hole. When light hits the other helmet Caine hears a hiss from the other man. Still alive, then.

They lie on the surface for a long moment, like children making snow-angels. Caine realises some of his dangerous exhaustion must be carbon dioxide build up. His suit power got them to the surface and now there's just a trickle left, barely enough to heat his life-support system. He can smell singed metal.

There's something important he's forgotten.

"Your. Beacon." he says to the other splice. Gesturing to the front of his suit, where every Skyjacker keeps his emergency beacon. If it's been damaged in the fall, there's no hope for them.

The Skyjacker fumbles at his suit, pulls a handle. A green glow surrounds them both as the beacon is triggered, a coded flare signalling that here's a survivor, after all.

"Good." Caine doesn't have the breath for long speeches. "Stay here."

The Skyjacker is saying something, but Caine can't quite make it out. His auditory processing is liable to drop out in times of stress, it's one of his flaws. There's a ringing in his ears.

Caine closes his eyes for a moment.

" - for saving my life," the Skyjacker is saying. Then, "Stay with me, soldier. Breathe! Shit - "

**Summer surprised us**

"Thought we were going to lose you," says a warm voice as Caine opens his eyes, feeling unaccountably comfortable. He's in a medical bay aboard a ship someplace, sharp smell of disinfectant in his nostrils. Nothing hurts any more.

"Where am I?" Caine rasps, through a voice that feels like he hasn't used it in months.

"You're aboard the Aegis cruiser _Banner of Light_ ," says the voice. A man's voice. It seems familiar but Caine can't place it. "You've just had a Recode."

Caine scrambles to sit up, to explain, "Can't afford it - sorry - I don't have that kind of - "

The splice regarding him from across the medbay smiles, showing white teeth. "Don't worry about it. The Legion paid." His voice is familiar, if you add a layer of pain to it.

"You're the Skyjacker," Caine realises. "The one who fell." Memory is coming back to him now, slices of it. Pinwheeling down to the planet in a bright flash of weaponry.

"I'm Captain Apini. Skyjacker First Corps, at your service."

"Sir," says Caine, saluting awkwardly. With some kind of medical monitoring device attached to his elbow, it doesn't come out quite right.

"But folks who save my life get to call me Stinger," the splice adds with a grin. "If it weren't for you, I'd be a new crater on that moon right now."

"It's nothing. Captain. Uh, Stinger. Sir," Caine says. His tongue tangles around the man's nickname. No-one's ever asked him to call them by anything other than their rank before, and it warms him better than the recode did. It occurs to him that there's something missing from this man that he'd expect of a Skyjacker. Bare shoulders, nothing rising behind them. "I'm sorry about your wings."

Captain Apini makes a forget-it gesture. "We're headed to Orous now, where I'm due to get my replacements implanted."

"I - could rejoin my troop, there," says Caine, uncertainly. Would they even be able to transport him from Orous back to Legion reserve headquarters? He was out of place here, and getting further from where he was supposed to be every minute. But he could hardly ask a Skyjacker to turn his ship around to send a lowly Legion soldier back to where he was supposed to be serving. His heart sang with the secret hope of getting to serve aboard a Skyjacker ship even for a little while. Maybe they could use someone to polish the armour?

"That's the other thing," says Captain Apini, smiling again. His teeth look sharp. "You're going to get yours there, too."

"Mine?" Caine's so dumbstruck he forgets to address the Captain properly.

"Your wings." Captain Apini looks at him with golden, insectile eyes. "When I told my commander about your heroism, he was determined to have you for the Corps. Welcome aboard."

Caine actually can't speak. He swallows, tries to say something appropriate, fails, and just finds himself kneeling at the Captain's feet.

"Sir," he manages. "I will serve you to the last breath in my body."

Captain Apini - Stinger - smiles again. "You already have, soldier. Now get some rest. You'll be flying soon enough."

**In the mountains, there you feel free.**

Caine lets out a whoop of exhilaration as his wings beat strongly and drive him gliding down the canyon. It's better than skating on air, a thousand times better, because the wings are a part of him, they respond to his every thought. Air rushes through his pinion-feathers and it makes him feel drunk with delight.

Captain Apini follows in his wake at a more moderate pace. His insect-wings allow him to hover and fly backward, taking greater skill than Caine could manage. He's drilling laps around the canyon rim, some forward and some back, eyes squinting concentration. The Captain had told Caine that being granted wings again was almost like returning to the beginning, having to start learning the reflexes from scratch, but Caine sees nothing awkward or haphazard in his movements. Far from it. He's the best here.

Another splice barrels past Caine, brown wings beating heavily and sending Caine tumbling in his downdraft. Caine beats his wings a few times to get himself out of range and ends up brushing against a splice in golden armour who claws at him indignantly, bat wings rushing past Caine's head.

"Sorry," Caine mutters, trying to steer himself away.

"Clumsy little runt, isn't it," says the bat-winged one to someone else. "I can't believe what they're letting into the Legion these days."

Suddenly flying doesn't feel like so much fun any more. Caine flies carefully down toward an unoccupied section of the canyon and lands himself on a ledge, panting. A trickle of blood spills down his arm and he realises he managed to cut himself on the bat claws of the superior splice. 

Captain Apini is hovering in front of him. "I saw what happened," he says to Caine. "Do you want me to tell the air marshals?"

Caine shakes his head. "No point," he says. "Just how it is."

"That clumsy oaf isn't fit to fly," the Skyjacker Captain says angrily. "He should've seen you were driven into him accidentally."

Caine licks his wounds. "It doesn't matter," he says. 

Captain Apini brushes a hand against one of the cuts on Caine's jaw. It's the first time they've touched, skin on skin. The Captain's hand is cool, gentle. "Well, it matters to me," he says. Before Caine knows what's happening, the Captain's back in the air above him, saying words of challenge to the bat-winged splice.

"Let him defend himself then, if he's such a fancy flyer. That puppy's only here because you dragged him above his station," says the bat-winged one in reply. "It's embarrassing to see you mooning over such a mutant, Stinger."

A wave of anger sweeps crimson through Caine's vision. Before Captain Apini can say anything else, Caine launches himself into the air to hover beside him. "I accept your challenge," he says.

The soldiers around them are hooting and jeering at the promise of a fight.

"Now?" Caine asks.

The bat-winged splice hisses. "We're being watched by the air marshals, idiot. I'll gladly put you in your place tonight. After midnight."

"Done," says Caine.

**the dead tree gives no shelter**

"That was a stupid thing to do," says Captain Apini again to him. "Do you remember what I told you?"

"Get him down, however I can, and try to fight him on the ground," says Caine readily. "We'll be more evenly matched there, I know."

"Lietenant Beleth has had his wings for two hundred years, Caine. He'll kill you in the air," says the Captain. "I could've taken care of this for us. Why'd you have to do it?"

"Got to prove myself sometime," said Caine, but that wasn't the real reason. He'd never let his Captain be hurt for him, for something so worthless as those angry words earlier. He'd promised.

"Well, best of luck to you," says Captain Apini heavily. 

Beleth, the bat-winged splice, is waiting for them, hovering above a dead tree in the canyon wall. Another splice stands silently below him, for witness.

Beleth's eyes reflect the light and Caine realises he must be able to see in the dark better than either of them. Perhaps he has some echo-location ability, too. His scent is sour-tinged with bloodlust. "They should have left you in the vat, runt," he says in greeting.

Caine forgets the tactics he practiced all afternoon with Captain Apini and just jumps up toward Beleth, anger making him clumsy. The other splice dodges easily and brings a claw raking down Caine's left wing, a bright flash of pain.

"Time to send you back," says Beleth, wheeling and diving toward him with claws outstretched.

Caine's thigh is bleeding now, claw-marks raked across the flesh. He tries to concentrate, but Beleth is coming at him again, diving at his face. He barely dodges aside, wings awkward, feels another claw-gash open up over his ribs. The bat-splice is going to cut him to pieces up here.

"He's going to watch you die," sneers Beleth, seeming to read Caine's thoughts. Then he comes in again, wings flaring out as he attacks. 

Caine's desperate. He doesn't try to dodge this time, takes a claw to the chest and feels the fiery sting of it, but it lets him inside Beleth's guard. He seizes hold of the bat-splice's midsection and _grips_. Wings flail around him like a sharp-edged storm but he doesn't let go. His upper body is stronger than the bat-splice's, he realises - the other splice is bird-boned, delicate as a child under the sharp claws. A rib grinds under his grip and Beleth yelps.

They fall toward the ground, neither flapping his wings. Caine manages to land them by the dead tree and press Beleth up against it, adjusting his grip so the splice's neck is in his grasp.

He knows the rules of these fights, knows he can kill if he needs to, but doesn't want to make such an impression. He doesn't want more enemies here. "Do you yield?" Caine says, breathless.

Beleth hisses, and Caine tightens his grip again, fingers slippery with his own blood. Something gives under his fingers. "Do you yield?" he asks again, as Beleth struggles to breathe, flails uselessly with his clawing wings.

"Say it," says Beleth's silent friend, from behind them. "You're done, say it!"

"I yield," grunts Beleth, and Caine relaxes his grip. He can't quite believe it. They're done, he's won.

Beleth stretches out a hand to him, to shake. Perhaps this is the honorable nature of Skyjackers? He's heard so much about their code, their courageous ways. Caine takes Beleth's hand, smiles tentatively.

A claw slashes across his chest, unexpected, bright pain sending him back and tumbling to the ground. Caine tastes blood in his mouth as he rolls over, tries to get up again.

A bolt of lightning arches over his head, setting the tree behind them on fire. Lit by the burning vegetation, he sees Captain Apini ready another shot with a bolt-gun.

"You're done here," says the Captain, pointing his weapon at Beleth. "Stand down. You yielded."

"I never yielded to such a weakling," spits Beleth, coughing. "It was just a ruse. Get out of my way."

"Stand down, or I put you down," repeats the Captain. "Clear?"

"Come on, let's get out of here," says Beleth's companion. "With that fire, the Aegis marshals will be coming to see what the fuss is about."

"Fine. But this isn't over," snarls Beleth, limping away. "You don't have a long future, mutant."

**There is shadow under this red rock**

Caine hisses at the sting of the compress the Captain presses against his ribs.

"Hold still," says Captain Apini, and tapes another bandage down. "Your accelerated healing is something else. He nearly tore you apart back there, but these are repairing themselves already."

"You don't need to do that, Captain," says Caine, wincing at the sharp sting of healing salve as the Skyjacker Captain wraps his shoulder, too. "They'll scar over soon enough."

Captain Apini frowns. "You got them for me. It's the least I can do."

There's something strange in his voice. Caine can't make out the Captain's expression from this angle. His scent has changed, too. There's lingering anger and fear, but something else underneath it too, a heady scent Caine can't place. He lets it fill his nostrils as Captain Apini fusses with the last bandage.

"You smell good," says Caine, unthinking, and the Captain goes still beside him. For a terrible moment Caine thinks he's offended the splice somehow. But then,

"What do I smell of, exactly," asks Captain Apini softly.

There's nothing but the sound of their own breathing in the empty medical bay. Even the sims are powered down, waiting for dawn. A few dust motes spiral through the air, and the Captain's scent is intoxicating, and Caine is in so much trouble he can't really comprehend it.

"Lust," realises Caine, and stands up suddenly, trying to step away and clear his head before he does something stupid. But Apini's scent is everywhere in here, inescapable, even as Caine's leg hits a tray of medical equipment and brings him up short.

Captain Apini looks away from him with those golden eyes. "I could never betray my oath of office," he says, quiet, almost to himself. "You're under my command. It would be unlawful."

"I'm not under your command," Caine points out, some mischief in him stretching his mouth into a dog-grin. "I haven't made my oath yet, so I'm not under your command."

"So you aren't," breathes Captain Apini, turning back toward him. 

They freeze for a moment, regarding one another.

"If you want this, lock the door," says Captain Apini. 

The lock clicks as it activates, loud against the quiet sounds of their breathing.

**Come in under the shadow of this red rock**

It happens very quickly after that. Apini is biting at Caine's ear, at his jaw, mouthing at his throat and drawing sounds from Caine like he's never heard anyone make before. Strong fingers pull at his hair but then release him, and Apini steps backward, panting.

"You're hurt," says the Captain. "I shouldn't - "

"M not made of glass," growls Caine, a heady wave of anger rolling through him. "Damn you."

He shoves Captain Apini backward, pressing his body into the door with a viciously tight grip. Dragging his fangs across the Captain's neck he can taste that scent, and it drives him crazy. A moment later the Captain forces him backwards, a couple of swift jabs to Caine's midsection sending him stumbling, knocking over a tray of medical instruments with a clumsy wing.

"Better," gasps Caine as Apini tackles him down to the floor and rips open his tunic. The Captain hesitates a moment, looking down at him, and Caine thinks sickeningly that he's changed his mind, realised he can do better, but that scent hasn't changed, if anything it's stronger now. For whatever strange reason, Apini wants him, so Caine twists and shoves and now the Captain's pinned underneath him, breathing hard. 

He discovers that Apini's wing-surfaces are supersensitive in this state, and runs rough fingers over them to feel the man tremble beneath him, shuddering with need. Caine thinks darkly of how he cut through these with a knife, once. The Captain takes advantage of that intruding thought to gain the upper hand again, forcing Caine to the ground with a hand around his throat and putting a mouth to him, nipping at the flesh between neck and shoulder with sharp teeth. Caine groans.

He wants so much, it's suddenly overwhelming. He doesn't even know where to start. Caine's never done this before, never really felt the need for it, but now he wishes he had years of experience to draw on. Tentative, he puts a hand to Apini's face, feels the rough stubble there. The Captain blinks gold eyes and takes Caine's fingers into his mouth, deep. Caine is making some sort of noise now, and he tries to be quiet but he can't. Feeling the rasp of Apini's tongue on his fingers is just bearable, but then the Captain bites down, gently, and Caine loses control entirely. 

When the juddering wave of sensation has broken over him, he's left ashamed. Caine doesn't know much but he knows that was too soon, hideously embarrassing. No hope for Apini not to notice.

"I'm sorry," manages Caine. "I didn't mean to - "

"You haven't done this before, have you," says Captain Apini, and Caine feels shame rising in his chest. Why is he made wrong, why wasn't he constructed better? Who ever heard of failing so badly at sex that you didn't even manage to disrobe?

But the Captain's looking down at him smiling, some soft expression surprised on his face. "I should have realised," he says. "You're so young."

Caine tries to get up. "I'll go back to my quarters, Sir," he mumbles. 

Captain Apini doesn't let him up. "I'm not half-way done with you yet," he says, with a crooked grin. "Let me see what it takes to get you to call me Stinger."

**Your shadow at morning striding behind you**

Brotherhood is new to Caine. His burning adoration of Captain Apini is too, of course, but he can't think about that too hard at any one time or he's liable to lose focus. But these splices - he hasn't saved their lives, or even helped them in any way, but somehow they're now his brothers.

Litter-mates. He'd never really had those before.

Swaggering Keelo is the tech specialist of Squad Five, always carrying some sort of tool and a cheerful grin. He shows Caine around their new ship, first, and introduces him to the rest.

"Of course, Squad Three have a poker game that's best experienced first-hand, so I won't say anything about _that_ until later. You ever played poker before?" asks Keelo. "Betting game," he says, not waiting for an answer, "Very tricky. I hope you're not too attached to these - " he plucks at a wing feather impishly, "- because the betting tends to get heavy. And here is our own dear Squad Five wardroom," Keelo finishes, triumphantly waving a hand around at a comfortable command-centre starboard aft of the troopship. A few personal touches, such as a silk hanging on one wall, a small jungle of plants in pots and a prominently displayed Commendation of the Aegis award show it's inhabited.

A splice is hanging from the ceiling wrapped in bat-wings and for a moment Caine's heart jumps, thinking of Beleth. But surely the Captain would have mentioned if the splice he'd made an enemy of was aboard?

"Ugh, will you please stop waking me just as I'm about to get to sleep," says a female voice from the huddle of leathery wings. One of them cracks open and a blue-haired face peeks out, looking irritated. "It's like you have a special gift."

"And this is our Moira, who hates to be disturbed during the day-cycle," added Keelo.

"Sorry," said Caine. 

She peeks out again. "Forgiven, I suppose," she sniffed. "As you're new."

"And finally here are Heth, Seth and Kilbreth," says Keelo, ducking through a doorway and gesturing at three heavy-set dog splices. Caine feels his hackles rise as he examined the others. There was no way he could best them all in a fight, but to show weakness was deadly. He sprang forward before over-thinking it could cripple his reflexes.

By the time Keelo could say, "other dog-splices," Caine has his teeth into the shoulder of the largest - Heth? and then is pinned to the floor by a combination of the other two.

"Something to prove?" growls Seth at him. "Settle down!"

Caine snaps at him but gets pushed back down by one of the brothers, who have to sit on his chest. He bites that one's thigh though, at least.

"Really, there's no call for that," says Keelo, taken aback. "Do you want me to throw a bucket of cold water on the lot of you again?"

But Caine is caught up in a friendly wrestling tangle of dog-splices, and too out of breath to speak. 

"Leave them," comes Moira's voice from the other room, "That's just how they get to know each other sometimes."

Keelo steps away.

Caine feels Heth bite the scruff of his neck, and yields. He doesn't want to be alpha, not really, he doesn't know enough about how any of this Skyjacker stuff works. He just needs to show he isn't a weakling.

"Heard about you," says Kilbreth in a thoughtful tone. He doesn't add the descriptions Caine would have expected. Just, "Saved our Captain."

"Mine," says Caine thoughtlessly, too much dog in him coming to the surface.

Seth barks a laugh. "Already gotten you wrapped around his fingers, hasn't he," says the splice, pushing Caine back to the floor when he lunged upward and snapped. "Don't worry. We all love the Captain too. So that means you're already a friend."

"Friends," marvels Caine. He could get used to this.

**your shadow at evening rising to meet you**

The system of Abukesh is a ringworld, not a planet, and so there are far more things to go wrong. When the rebels said they'd rigged the Great Ring to blow, the Abrasax Entitled that the Skyjacker Corps had been assigned to enforce order for didn't believe them. He didn't think it was possible for slaves to complete an engineering feat of that magnitude.

Caine is racing across the surface of a plate covered with charges that prove this theory wrong. "It's going to blow, Stinger! They're all over this tectonic zone, too!"

The Captain's voice in his ear is tense. "Shit. Can you defuse? I'm sending Squad Five to you now."

"Trying," Caine says, his suit computer frantically scrolling through manuals to try and identify the bomb components. "It's some kind of exotic metal - I'm not sure how to unwire them."

He looks at the surface of one of the charges, smooth metal blinking with red lights that are getting faster as he watches. Caine scrabbles at the surface, looking for a hook-point, anything to get him in. He's never regretted his inadequate mechanical education more. A true Skyjacker would have the background to understand this tech.

"Hah!" One of the surfaces finally comes away under his hands, but it reveals a kaleidoscope of other lights, on circuits as fine as filigree beneath him. Caine realises he could just as easily blow this thing as manage to defuse it. "I don't know this tech, I'm sorry," he says to Stinger over the comm. "I'll keep trying to find an index."

His comm says something back but it's interfered with by a blatt of static, and Caine can't make it out. He tries to pop open a panel on one of the other charges, wondering if perhaps one of them has a master-switch or coordination device that he can attack, but they're all the same - lacy circuits, no obvious center or routing.

Squad Five come down to join him, and he can see Keelo brandishing his toolbox with a triumphant grin through his suit helmet.

"Missed us?" asks the other splice, taking out an Orousian diagnostic reader and waving it over one of the charges. "Whoah, these things are even weirder than the other ones! Neat!"

Moira shakes her head wryly. "Great," she quips. "I've always wanted to defuse another magma-bomb."

Seth, Heth and Kilbreth don't waste their time in greetings, just get straight to opening up the bomb casings for the others to defuse.

Caine's so relieved they're here. 

More static in his ear. Caine shakes his head, says, "Can you repeat? Do you copy me?"

" - out - there! - " says the tinny voice. " - going! -"

The fragments of Captain Apini's words in his ear don't make much sense, but they sound frantic. Caine boosts himself up and away from the tectonic surface to try and get a better reception.

That's why he, out of the whole squad, is the only survivor. The nanites eat everything on the surface that they touch, converting it into a mass of metal boiling outward into the void. Because Caine's boots weren't touching the surface, he gets to hang in the air and scream while he watches his squad be devoured.

When the ship finally comes to pick him up, he's still screaming.

**I will show you fear in a handful of dust.**

  
Abukesh eats soldiers. The guerilla war has destroyed everything, even hope. Caine's job now, as he sees it, is to try to protect the men he serves with, for as long as he can, from the inevitable. He tries not to get too attached. Second tour out, you'd think he'd be better at it by now.

On Caine's shoulder is his squad tattoo. It itches when he thinks too hard about how many splices he's lost already. The spiral that represents Squad Five seems to burn itself into him, a sharp reminder of his failures. He remembers when he first got it, drunk and laughing after his first mission with the team. Long gone.

Today Captain Apini has given them an escort mission. The Entitled who started all this is visiting the system, a flying visit to view the progress of the war (it is not going well). Caine's role is to coordinate the guards, help deter any attackers.

Caine isn't close enough to see the Entitled's face, but he can hear him. A shrill, angry voice, demanding. "I want to see results! This system has been a complete waste so far. Honestly, I might as well tear it down and start again. You promised this would be over by now!"

The Grand Marshal responds in an uncharacteristically cringing tone. "Your Majesty. I apologise most sincerely. We will make better efforts."

"You'd better do. Or I'll take it out of your hide myself," says the Entitled.

The voice of their rulers isn't what Caine expected. Something calm, godlike, was what he'd thought of when it crossed his mind. Like the smooth-carved statues they kept in the Entitled-niches for the more devout to swear to, in the ship's chapel. He sounds like a spoiled child. It raises Caine's hackles.

Perhaps the voice of the Entitled distracts Caine more than it should. He only picks up the telltale shadowy pings on the contact-screen when it's almost too late. "Launch intercepts!" shouts Caine, strapping himself into his own fighting-suit. He takes a moment to slap Robben on the back - the boy's shaking, it'll be his first time out.

They're blown out of the airlocks thunderously, as if the ship can make up for their slow speed by launching impressively, to intimidate the guerillas. They won't be intimidated. These attackers aren't even human any more.

Nanite tendrils stream toward the ship, and Caine unleashes his weapons fire on them, sparking them to bright plasma in his wake. He wonders in between gasps of air, wheeling to fire behind him, whether anyone is truly left alive in the guerilla stronghold. Or if it is just machinery, automated hell unleashed upon the remains of the system in pure spite.

A nanite swarm catches up to Robben, whose screams echo in the comm before Caine blasts him down. A merciful death, he tries to tell himself. His tattoo itches.

If even one glittering spark reaches the ship, shielded though it is, the nanites will devour everyone inside. They eat shield energy for breakfast, and grow strong on it. 

Caine catches a ping on his port side just in time, sets the questing tendril of nanites alight with his arm canon. 

"Stand by for contact, all units!" he shouts down the comm. "Defense positions!"

They brace themselves as the main swarm comes hurtling at them. If you get them early enough, you can lob a tactical nuclear weapon into the main mass, fry a few billion that way, but this is close-quarters fighting, strictly hand-to-hand. They're too close to the ship for anything else. It's boosting further away, but slowly. "Plasma cannons, fire on my mark!"

Somehow, they make it work. The shield group is ragged by the end, but the nanites are gone, blown to harmless dust by their weaponry. Caine allows himself a moment to feel hungry, sick, exhausted. His sweat hasn't quite been mopped up by the suit's systems and a drop trickles down his face, itching. The squad are cheering and he hears it dully in his comm, as if it's happening to someone else.

Out of the corner of his eye Caine sees something silver. So small it could almost be an optical illusion. Twinkle and glitter, falling closer to the ship. A single nanite left from the swarm.

Caine doesn't have the breath left to swear. All he says is, "One more!" and then makes a rapid dive at it with all he's worth.

He can't catch it fast enough. By the time he can intercept, they're so close to the ship's side that he can't fire his plasma cannon safely, not toward the vessel. So instead Caine reaches out his hand and watches the speck of glitter drift down to land on it. Time to die.

"What are you doing?" cries out a voice in his comm. There's only one person left who cares about Caine that much.

"I'm sorry, Stinger," says Caine as the tiny silver speckle lands on his suit glove. "It's the only way." It doesn't hurt, at first, and he watches them spread out across the surface of the fingers like silver mesh, glittering. Then it does hurt, overwhelmingly, his hand is on fire, his arm feels like he dipped it into lava and his nerves are burning. Caine prays for it to hit a vein and reach his heart, stop the torment quickly.

Then there's a loud sound and suddenly his hand is gone - everything below the elbow - a gout of plasma lighting up his visor and blinding him for a moment. 

Caine wakes up drifting to blipping sound of a low-integrity suit alarm. The ship's gone from behind him. But nearby is a recovery-craft, probes out, bundling him into a pod.

**You gave me hyacinths first a year ago**

Caine is not a good convalescent. It's unusual enough for the Entitleds' conflicts to leave survivors that he's alone in his ward in the giant Legion hospital on Orous, and bored. Sims supply him with food and drink, offer entertainment, but he's really just here killing time and waiting for his new arm to grow.

He should be thankful. He knows he should be thankful that Willem could fire from a different position and save his life, but all he can feel inside is numb. Some gratitude. The boy was shaky and pale over the vidscreen and Caine couldn't even muster up a kind word to send him back into battle with. 

Now he has what every soldier on Abukesh wants. An honorable discharge, at least until his wounds heal and he's any use again. Caine grits his teeth. They're out there dying and he's sitting here eating grapes.

Apparently the Entitled was impressed at Caine's loyalty (what loyalty? he wonders) and asked that he be well taken care of. 

"Would Sir care for a light meal?" asks the bronze medical sim, her mechanical smile pulling up at the corners in a parody of life.

"No," says Caine, looking away. He can't look at that face without having to repress a bone-deep shudder. Mechanical things that aren't quite alive disturb him. The scent's all wrong.

Caine turns his face to the wall and wishes he could feel something.

**when we came back, late, from the hyacinth garden**

Caine is actually drunk, he realises. This happens rarely enough that he makes a note of how it feels, for next time. It only took five of those shots that taste like lighter-fluid on an empty stomach. Maybe his tolerance isn't increasing, after all.

He thought going out would make a difference, but is it really better to get wasted in a spaceport bar instead of ordering something to his rooms and nursing the bottle? Either way, he's drinking alone. No-one in this particular crowd wants to approach a rabid-looking dog splice with bloodshot eyes and a belligerent attitude when he drinks. Caine smells fear, just a hint, among some of the patrons, as well as a thicker layer of disgust.

He looks wrong. In the squad he could forget it, focus on the missions and the acceptance he felt from his team-mates. And Captain Apini made it clear there weren't going to be jokes about runts of the litter on his watch. 

But out here, it's obvious. No-one's met another Lycantant who looks like him. If it wasn't clear enough that he's a mutant, his brands mark him out as second-best. A reject. The stares that follow him ask the question he's been asked his whole life. Why is he still alive?

Until the Legion wants him back, he can't answer it. Caine is pretty sure the alcohol is dulling his healing, slowing the growth of his new hand, but at this point he needs it to get through the day without the purpose the Skyjackers gave him, to dull the thoughts about the soldiers he left behind. Vicious cycle.

A glass of violet liquor slides across the table in front of him and interrupts his reverie. Caine looks up to see who gave it to him.

"I came to see how your convalescence was going," says Stinger, sitting down across from Caine. "Not well, I gather."

"What're you doing here?" asks Caine. He tries not to slur the words. "Y'r in Abukesh." He feels a little floaty, pleased to see someone who's alive. He keeps forgetting Stinger is still alive.

"Abukesh is over. Done," says Stinger, looking the closest to blazing mad Caine's ever seen him. "That Entitled decided, after we'd made a pretty enough pile of bodies for him, to destroy the system from orbit. All that's left is a dust cloud, now." He blows out a breath. "Two million soldiers, all told."

"N the Abukeshians," points out Caine. "Them too."

"Hah. I suppose they got their wish, in the end. Didn't want to be harvested, did they. Well, they weren't ever harvested."

Caine takes a sip of the liquor he's been given. It has a floral burn to it, goes down easily. Everything goes down easily after a while, of course.

"Thanks," he remembers to say, draining the rest.

"I don't know if you should thank me for that," says Stinger. "I need your services. That's a sober-up."

Caine tries to formulate the words to tell Stinger to fuck royally off, then the sober-up hits him. It's like being slapped in the face, hard. 

"Fuck," he gasps, choking. "You son of a bitch." Clarity returns like a painful light at the back of his brain. His skull feels like someone stuffed it with nails.

"Told you you shouldn't thank me, kid," says Stinger, smug.

"What do you bloody want, Stinger?" asks Caine. "Why couldn't this have waited for tomorrow?" He squeezes the bridge of his nose with a hand, trying to head off the incipient headache.

"Tomorrow you'd be sleeping off a hangover," says Stinger. "I need you for a job tonight."

"Legion?" Caine asks dubiously. But why would the Legion approach him in a seedy bar, instead of just filing his call-up papers when his health reached the right indicators. It didn't make any sense.

Stinger is shaking his head. "I'm not working for the Legion on this one," he says. "Needed someone I could trust, is the size of it. I'm looking for a Hunter."

"I know I'm supposed to be a tracker genetically, Stinger, but you know me. My makers messed up. I'm better at fighting than that stuff. Scent-tracking, the rest of it. I don't know if I can help," admits Caine. "What's the job, anyway?"

Stinger takes a breath. "Finding my daughter," he says.

**Your arms full, and your hair wet**

Stinger is rattling through the cupboards of his storage area, purposeful. Acting as if the silence between them doesn't mean anything.

"Here it is," he says at last, pulling out a plain white cloth, carefully folded. "This is what I wrapped her in, when she was first born. Can you smell anything of her on it?"

It's weeks old, faint. But Caine can make out something, a ghost scent, decaying. The child's a bee splice, like her father, with a thread of something else running through her genes. It's hard to make out.

There's nothing of Caine in there. He doesn't know why he should feel - disappointed at that. He doesn't want or need a child.

"I'm sorry I don't have anything better," adds Stinger. "They took the rest of her things."

"Who do you think did it?" asks Caine, pressing the cloth to his nose to absorb the scent.

Stinger shakes his head. "I don't know. I don't know who."

Caine sees suddenly that his Captain is on the verge of falling apart. He doesn't know where to look. Stinger has always been strong, determined, but now he looks lost and empty.

Caine tries to ask the questions a real Hunter would. "Who else knew about her? Your daughter."

"No-one," says Stinger. "I kept the pregnancy secret. From everyone, from my crew, from the Legion. At first because I didn't - I didn't know what was happening. I thought of tumors, mutation, gene anomalies, incurable failures. I didn't want my post to be taken away from me."

Caine nods.

"Then when I felt her kick for the first time, I realised. And I wanted to keep her. I was on leave when the pains started, so I holed up in a transients hostel and did it by myself. We stayed there, after. I didn't have a plan for what came next. I knew I couldn't take my Kiza back to the barracks, back to my ship, but I just lived day to day. Caring for her."

Caine doesn't say, you didn't have to do this alone in the middle of a war. He doesn't say, why didn't you trust me? 

He doesn't ask who the other parent is, although he wants to. 

"Describe what happened when she was taken," says Caine.

"The news came that the war had ended." Stinger puts a hand to his eyes. "I was glad of it. Selfish bastard. Because now I could take my mustering-out bonus and buy somewhere, a bolt-hole to live with her. Maybe pay for some sims to help raise her. She was growing so fast. I went out - first time in weeks I'd gone anywhere without her strapped to my body - went to the Legion bank to claim my credits. When I got back - " Stinger makes a broken sound. "She was gone."

Caine puts an awkward hand to Stinger's shoulder. The other splice leans into his touch and for a moment they just hold each other.

Stinger steps back, blinking. Voice hoarse, he says, "I tore the place apart looking for her, but no-one would tell me anything. I should've tried harder - should never have left her - would've killed them all but then the Aegis marshals came and broke things up. Arrested me."

"How long did they hold you?" asks Caine.

"Three days," says Stinger. "Got out today, after the commander made a plea on my behalf, in return for my taking the _Lady of the Rocks'_ captaincy on."

"The flagship?"

Stinger nods. "She ships out tomorrow. It's an honor - I can't refuse it, not and keep my place in the Legion. I need your help, Caine."

In three days, she could have been taken almost anywhere in the known Universe. You'd have to be able to track a single gene in the Gyre to find someone like that. He doesn't even know if it's possible.

"I'll get her back for you," says Caine. "I promise."

**a wicked pack of cards**

Madame Sosostris blinks at Caine owl-eyed through enormous spectacles. "We don't have records of a juvenile female apis-splice passing through our hands in the last hundred days. You're in the wrong place." She snaps her beak peevishly. "Our educational establishment is very exclusive," she adds. "My Lord doesn't accept anything but the best for his harem. Some Legion brat is hardly elite material."

Caine's hands flex into fists. He forces them to relax. It doesn't matter what she says, what matters is the scents. He lets them wash over him, the dull stone of the corridors, dusty passageways, twining remnant scent of the students as they walk from class to class. A single thread is familiar.

"Thank you," says Caine, launching himself out of the stained-glass window. He leaves her twittering behind him as his wing beats take him up, out of the tower. Fragments fall around him as he sniffs the evening air, lets the thread guide him to a playground at the edge of the cliffs.

Little splice-girls are skipping, singing a rhyme about soldiers. They shriek when they see him, and most run into the trees or under the skirts of their caretakers. 

One of the smallest remains, staring up at Caine with blue hexagonal insect eyes as he comes in to land on the packed dirt. She has a wisp of blond hair and is wearing a neat blue hospital gown.

"Kiza, I'm here to take you home," Caine says to her.

A white-robed orderly is pointing a magma-pistol at Caine with shaking hands. "Get out of here, dog! You're trespassing!"

Casually, Caine shoots the man in the thigh, and he falls down, screaming.

"You've stolen something," says Caine. "This girl belongs to the Legion. She'll be coming with me."

The other keepers of the children are shouting incoherently, one of them dialing for help with a beacon. Time to go. 

Caine picks up the little girl in his arms - she weighs almost nothing - and launches them over the cliffs. She's screaming so he frowns down at her, trying to think of how to be comforting, but then he realises it's a sound of shrill delight at their rapid flight. She's her father's daughter.

"Are you my daddy?" asks Kiza, sleepy, as he tucks her into the blankets he's cocooned in a spare pocket of the hull of an outbound freighter. Caine takes up station beside the cargo-pod beside her, swallows another stim-tab to help him stay awake. 

"No," says Caine, sees her little face fall. Something in him twists. "I'm taking you to him, though. He's a good man. You'll be safe there."

"Okay," says Kiza, and curls up, already half-asleep, buried in the nest of blankets.

"Okay," says Caine. 

He watches her sleep.

**Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks**

Somehow Caine's gone into business as a tracker for the Legion. When he was called up again, Stinger must have pulled strings and got him assigned to the new ship in a different role. Now he serves aboard the flagship, too, as a real Hunter.

It's good to use his talents like this. Not just combat, hunting - it takes some intelligence, some detective work, not brute force. His smaller size doesn't matter so much.

A new ship brings new challenges, though. Caine has to prove himself to a new group of soldiers, show he's worthy of his place among them.

Passing him in the corridor, Stinger frowns and grabs Caine's arm. "What the fuck happened to your face?"

"Nothing," says Caine. He's conscious of the eyes of Stinger's Aegis liaison on him. A cool-looking woman of indeterminate age, she looks at him like an interesting bug she's just wiped off her shoe. Her biomimetic implants shine.

"That doesn't look like nothing," says Stinger, letting go of Caine's sleeve to raise a hand to his face. "That left orbit's fractured, or I'm a drone."

Caine can't help a wince of pain. His eyes plead for Stinger not to make a big deal out of this, not to shame him in front of the rest of the crew. He just got caught by surprise in the mess hall, that was all. Didn't guard himself enough. A quick slam from behind had sent his face into his metal plate, slopping oatmeal everywhere. Unlucky, for it to break anything.

"Report to the medbay," orders Stinger. "Dismissed."

The android in the medbay hums tunefully as she sprays a fresh coat of NuSkin onto Caine's eye socket and gives him some sort of bone growth injection.

"You are my best customer, Mr Wise," she remarks.

"Thanks," he says, retrieving his tunic and shrugging it back on. "See you around."

"I should hope not!" she says indignantly. "You must be more careful."

"I will," says Caine. Guess he's started talking to the appliances now.

Later, when the night-cycle has dimmed the ship's lights and only a few crew-mates are left awake, Caine quietly pads to Captain Apini's cabin and knocks on the door. He needs to make sure the Captain doesn't make an issue of this, reassure him that Caine will be fine without his supervision, once he and the crew have gotten used to one another.

It opens as soon as he touches it, and a voice from inside says, "Come in."

Caine steps in, door sliding back into place behind him. The Captain has a nice set of rooms here, the fanciest he's seen aboard a troopship - the living area seems big enough for a game of cards with a big glass table and a window that shows a drift of stars outside as the ship turns. The lights are soft. There's a portrait of Kiza on one wall, a three-dimensional holo that smiles as you move around the room.

The Captain's voice comes from another room, doorway open to this one. "I told you I don't need to see that report until morning, Morgan, though I commend your initiative - " He steps through and sees Caine. "Oh. What're you doing here?"

Stinger is shirtless, a towel draped over one shoulder. His wings are folded, golden and iridescent, along his back. He's clearly been washing himself up, ready to turn in for the night. Caine's words dry up in his mouth. 

"Well, what is it?" asks Stinger impatiently.

"I - " Caine can't say, I don't need you to protect me, when the man clearly hadn't been going to. Egotistical, to think that he would.

"Listen, I don't think it's a good idea for you to be seen visiting me here," says Stinger. He dries his face with the towel for a moment. "I don't want the crew to get the wrong idea about you and me."

"The wrong idea," says Caine. "And what would be the right idea?" he can't help asking.

"Well, I - what I mean to say is, I don't want to seem biased toward any particular member of my crew. You've got to fight your own battles, Caine, hard though that might sound. I know you're a good soldier. They'll find that out, too. But it won't do you any favors to be associated with me, people will just think you're trying to fuck your way to the top."

"I see," says Caine. 

The Captain frowns at him. "I'm not saying that's what you're doing. I'm saying it's what people would think. It's just, appearances are important on a posting like this, I've the reputation of the Commonwealth to uphold and a hundred different people to please - "

"Good night, Stinger," says Caine, and turns to go. 

"Is that all?" says the Captain. "You were here to ask something of me, what is it? If there's something I can help you with, tell me."

"There's nothing I need from you," says Caine. "Good night. Sorry to disturb you."

Caine opens the door onto a splice with a nervous, twitching nose. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise the Captain was busy!" the splice squeaks. "I can come back later?"

"I was just leaving," says Caine. He realises with embarrassment that this looks exactly like the assignation the Captain was so keen to avoid the appearance of. "Captain Apini was briefing me on my latest assignment," he adds.

"Come in, Morgan," says Stinger, not sparing a backward glance at Caine. "Let's have the details of that report before you send it to high command, eh?"

**The lady of situations.**

Garvey is actually clapping Caine on the back. The heavyset rhino splice didn't have two words to spare for Caine before they hunted this prey together, but now his friendly thumps jolt Caine forward. "Good work, dog man," he rumbles.

The crooked merchant crouches on the floor below them, looking sorry for himself. He should be. Facing the Legion's justice for a thousand and more weapons which didn't fire is a daunting prospect for anyone.

"Sirs, please," he repeats. "Let's be reasonable. I'm sure you have living expenses, perhaps we can come to some sort of arrangement? I'm a very expensive man."

"You're a very breakable man," says Caine, baring his teeth. He'd known one of the splices who'd handled those weapons. When the first shot fails in an orbital battle, you often don't get a second shot. The _Lady of the Rocks_ had lost three soldiers that day. "Get in the shuttle."

Caine's accustomed to Hunting now, and he's good at what he does. Searching out kidnappers, finding the lairs of criminals for the Legion's justice. There's an art to it. Mostly it's about patience. Silently out-waiting his quarry, using their own impatience against them. Everyone makes a mistake, if you catch them at the right moment.

Kiza, his first victory, always comes to see them dock. She's there today for Stinger on the bridge of the space elevator, too impatient to stay on-planet waiting for him to get home. Caine always likes to watch their reunions, Stinger picking up his daughter and whirling her around in his arms. She's grown so tall.

"Caine!" she shouts at him, happily. "Come join us for dinner!"

"Sure, I'd like to," he says, "If your father doesn't mind?" They always do this dance. He's not sure if they're fooling anyone else but themselves, but he knows it's important to Stinger.

"Oh, we could make room for another guest," says Stinger casually. "Let's get on-planet."

Kiza's attempts at cooking food have become experimental, lately - she doesn't just switch on the rehydrator but insists on trying to construct the components from scratch. Something that fancy school is encouraging her in, maybe, though Caine's not sure what use the highborn might have for the skill. The results can be - interesting. 

"What do you think?" asks Kiza, over a bowl of berries in meat syrup. "Do you think I soaked it too long, Dad?"

"No, it's delicious," says Stinger, taking another forkful. "Right, Caine?"

"Sure," says Caine. As long as it's food, he doesn't really mind. Besides, he's with two of his favourite people.

"Are you just saying that?" Kiza asks, wrinkling her eyebrows. "Because I think it tastes kind of disgusting."

"Well - " Stinger tries to prevaricate, but then he and his daughter just look at each other and burst into simultaneous laughter. He wiggles his eyebrows at her. "Shall we order something from the 'Net?"

"Yes!" says Kiza. "Maybe I got the proportions reversed," she muses, tipping back in her chair perilously.

Without looking, Stinger reaches out with his foot to steady her. "There's always another try," he reassures her.

Times like these, Caine feels like an intruder. He clears the table, hands a little clumsy around the delicately painted dishes.

After the replacement meal and a few hours of pleasant conversation, Caine's tidying things up into the sterilizer when he feels Stinger come up behind him in the darkened kitchen.

"I should go," he says, because that's what he always suggests. "Leave you to it."

Stinger says, "Kiza's gone to bed. Stay for a minute." He comes closer, presses up against Stinger's back, already smelling interesting. He picks up a knife, a dull-bladed table knife useless as a real weapon, and presses it against Caine's side, just hard enough to hurt. "Just a minute more."

Caine breathes in that intoxicating scent, closes his eyes. "What could we do in a minute, Sir?" he asks lazily. 

Stinger growls, a low rumble against him. "I have some ideas," he says.

**(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)**

Caine hurls the dagger at the target again, gets it in the eye.

"You look like you're working out some aggression," says Diomika Tsing, the Aegis liaison, wry. "He's definitely dead now."

Caine steps forward, pries out the dagger with a grunt.

He's hunting a Legionnaire. Everything he tries, the other splice has thought ahead of him, covered his tracks. It's been months, and he's no closer to his quarry than he was when he begun. All he has to go on is the knowledge that someone highly-placed is skimming from Payroll, and a series of account numbers.

Caine hurls the dagger into the target again. Then he steps back, sheaths it, straps the target-practice weapon back where it belongs at the back of the ship's range. "Range is all yours, Diomika," he says.

"If I was being hunted by you, I'd be seriously concerned," she says, half-serious. "What rocks haven't you overturned yet? Found any undiscovered planets yet?"

"Hah," Caine says. "I've tried everywhere. There are no records, the trail's cold."

Diomika wrinkles her brow. "I guess he's hiding out on some piddly little rock somewhere, among the harvest."

"Say that again," says Caine. 

"Piddly little rock?"

"No. Among the harvest." There's somewhere he hasn't looked, after all, right under his nose. "Thank you, Diomika. I'm in your debt."

"For what?" she asks. "Uh, you're welcome."

It's a small planet, a primitive place that's never yet been harvested. Caine stands in the crowd watching a theatre performance, scent of mud and shit around them, the humans on stage dressed in complicated outfits and singing to the sound of a lute. One of them's supposed to be a monster, he gathers. It's raining gently, getting the audience wet but they don't seem to mind.

Almost too distracted by the performance, Caine catches the scent of his quarry again. Hiding underneath the smell of oranges studded with cloves, it lingers, strangely familiar, leading out of this groundling pit and round to the back of the theatre.

Caine leaves as the wizard on stage is breaking his staff and drowning his books and follows the scent outside.

He can tell the figure wrapped in a brown hooded cloak isn't human. Caine approaches cautiously, knowing that whoever this is has the measure of him, wondering what sort of splice is hiding here on this backwater world to try and evade him.

"You!" says the splice, sounding surprised. He raises the hood of his cloak, and Caine sees with a jolt that it's Beleth, the bat-winged splice he encountered on Orous at the very beginning of his training. He'd honestly forgotten the lieutenant existed. It feels as if their conflict existed in another dimension, happened to a different man. Beleth evidently doesn't think so, lips curling with hatred.

"I came to find out why you've been skimming from Payroll. It was you, wasn't it?" asks Caine, circling. He holds up a gravity-gun and points it at the other splice. "I'd have thought that sort of thievery was beneath a Skyjacker."

Lietenant Beleth spits. The man's face looks older, creased like leather. "I'm not a Skyjacker any more. They took my commission, filthy ingrates. After all I did for the Legion, I was cast aside like scrap, like I was nothing. Left to serve as a common Legionnaire."

Caine had assumed that cloak hid wings bound tightly to Beleth's back, hidden away from the sight of the humans like his own. He recalculates. "They stripped your wings," says Caine, shocked. "What did you do?"

Beleth says, "I offended an Entitled. Don't worry about how, it's easy enough to do. Apparently she didn't like my tone, candy-pink prissy princess piece of shit. Well, she's just a hole like any other. Giving herself airs."

"How dare you talk about our betters like that!" says Caine. "You're disgusting!"

Beleth smiles, bitter. "You'll see. They're just humans. What, you think they're special because they've lived so much longer than us? Because they have so much power over our lives? Get too close and they'll show you just how human and vicious they really are."

Caine shakes his head. This is a distraction. "You took C's from Payroll, didn't you? How did you get the codes? Were you working alone?"

"You don't care about that shit," says Beleth, "Not really. You've just been chasing me like a blind puppy chasing its tail, because you've been told to. You don't even know what skimming from Payroll means. How's it a crime when no-one suffers?"

"So you did it," says Caine. He's wary of those sharp claws, but the other splice seems in a mood to talk, not fight.

"Are you hunting me down for Stinger?" asks Beleth, suddenly. "You've always been his whipped dog."

"Captain Apini is my commanding officer," says Caine.

"And your fucktoy," says Beleth, baring sharp teeth in a grin that makes Caine want to break his face open. "You know, you should be jealous of me."

"Jealous?" asks Caine. "Why should I be jealous of you?"

Beleth grins, showing all his teeth. "Because I'm a father. Or didn't he tell you who sired the brat?"

All Caine can say is, "No."

"Oh, but it's true. Take in my scent, you'll feel the truth of it," says Beleth, leaning in closer. He suddenly grips Caine's face, forcing his nostrils open. Caine drops his weapon with surprise, almost gags with the sour sweat-stench of him. "How did you think I found the whelp?" Beleth is saying. "She's mine. She belongs to me. It was legal, I'd the right to sell my own natural splicing."

Beleth shoves Caine down, hard, and he tastes blood in his mouth. He knows this is just a distraction so Beleth can get away, but he feels the truth of it, smells it. The hidden thread in Kiza's genome is here. She is so beautiful, how can a fraction of her genetics come from this man? 

"Yes, I took Stinger's whelp," says Beleth, drawing a sword. "Why shouldn't I? What was he going to do with a brat aboard a troopship? It was a kindness, selling her to be brought up better."

"She's happier with her father," says Caine, tightly. "Don't tell me it was an act of charity. They harvest organs in that facility, from the children who don't make the grade, I've seen it."

"She's mine," says Beleth, rushing at his legs and tackling Caine down to the ground. "Can't even get a whelp, sterile runt," he's saying, and other things, clawing at Caine with broken nails, stabbing the sharp steel blade into his gut.

Caine struggles free, stumbles and falls backward heavily with the other splice on top of him. Beleth stabs Caine again, but the sword gets stuck on a rib and won't come free easily. It gives Caine a moment - an eyeblink - to grab for the gravity-gun again, and fire.

He misses, making a crater in the dirt behind them, sucking a tree into a ball of compacted needles. Beleth steps backward, slips in the mud, giving Caine a better vantage to level the gun at him. The rain starts coming down harder.

"Go on then, do it!" snarls Beleth, face distorted with anger. "Kill me! I'll die soon enough here either way, without Juice or a Recode. See how the Entitled pay back our loyalty?"

Caine steps back, shaking his head, feels his instincts protest at stepping away from a combat. But Caine is not his instincts, or not entirely. He draws his tagging-gun and flicks a quick tracking-dart into Beleth's arm.

"She's not yours any more," he says, spitting blood. "Criminals like you forfeit their right to property." Painfully, he unstraps his wings and takes flight, careless of any human observers. "When I give the Enforcers your location, they'll be here within the hour. Run and hide if you want. You can't escape justice much longer."

"Coward!" shouts Beleth from below. The other splice begins laughing and somehow that sound is more frightening than anything else he's said so far. "Go on, run back to the Legion! For as long as they'll have you!"

Caine flies upward through the misty grey clouds until he reaches the region above them. The rain washes him clean, washes the blood from his sides.

**Here is the man with three staves**

They're are sitting side by side on the couch, comfortable, a couple of beers in front of them on the coffee table. Caine had meant to say no, had meant to leave early, get back to the ship where he really should be working on a case, but instead he's here, sinking back into a comfortable heap of cushions and drinking with Stinger.

"Y'know, it'll be a while until Kiza gets back from her field trip," says Stinger. He leans in and nuzzles Caine's neck. "I could do something loud with you."

Caine shivers. He takes a sip from his bottle, letting the cold liquid wash down his throat. "I don't think that'd be a good idea," he finds himself saying.

"What?" Stinger asks, "You think the neighbours might hear - "

"I don't give a _shit_ about your neighbours, Stinger," says Caine, slamming the bottle down so hard it breaks. Liquid goes everywhere, probably ruining that nice rug Kiza found to match the holographic picture of Mount Kitori. "Were you ever going to tell me about Beleth?"

"What?"

"I found out who Kiza's other parent is. Was it just a one-time thing, or were you fucking him all along?" asks Caine. He hears the venom in his own tone and it shocks him. "Anyone else you want to tell me about?"

Stinger's standing up, hand on the butt of his pistol. "Hey, what the fuck? Since when did you care about that stuff?"

"You're the one who goes on about being safe, staying secret, not putting handles on yourself for the bureaucracy to use! Was it all just a lie?"

"What are you saying, you want exclusive rights to fuck me?" Stinger says, indignant. "I never said that was the deal! I never - yes, I see other people from time to time. It's not important! It's just blowing off steam!"

"Who else have you been doing this with?" asks Caine, furious.

"I'm not - look, obviously if an Entitled wants the use of me while aboard, I have to serve. And if I'm somewhere in the field and getting distracted by my own - by my urges, there are some people who've offered over the years - "

"I see." Fire is running through Caine's veins. "So I'm the only one who has to wait until we get ashore to spend time with you, is how it is. I guess you don't want to be seen running around with a mutant."

"Caine, will you get your head out of your arse? This isn't about your faulty genomgineering! Not everything revolves around - you know, I didn't even know for sure it was Beleth. Did you realise that? I'm glad, in a way, to hear it was him because I was worried that she might be reclaimed if - if her other parent was someone else. Now I know she's mine, safe. If you think the less of her because of it then fuck you, because it doesn't matter to me where the rest of her genetics came from. She's always been my girl."

Caine feels like he's two steps behind in this argument. "Are you saying you've fucked an Entitled?" No wonder he's ashamed to be seen with Caine.

" _Been_ fucked by an Entitled, and yes, but it's not what you seem to think - wait, are you jealous? You're unbelievable. You think I take any of the others home with me, to meet my daughter?" Stinger looks at the mess. "To ruin my damn carpet?"

Caine looks Stinger in the eye, and asks the question he should have asked years ago. "What am I to you?"

Stinger says, "You're my friend. One of my oldest, best friends. Who occasionally fucks me until I have bruises and bite marks all over me," he says. "Something I was kind of hoping we could get to today." He makes an abortive reach for Caine, who steps away. 

"I can't," says Caine, heavily. "I don't think I can share you. I'm sorry."

Stinger looks stunned, upset. "Well," is all he says. Then, "If that's how it is, then you'd better get back to the ship."

"I'll see you around," says Caine. It might be cruel to leave Stinger with the broken bottle to clear up, but he feels the need to leave as soon as he can, before he talks himself out of going. Stinger smells so good, but Caine is not just his instincts. He isn't. He makes an abortive salute. "Captain."

"Hunter," says Stinger, formal.

**something he carries on his back**

This time he just gives a wave to Kiza before Captain Apini walks away with her dockside. It's better this way. Caine doesn't want to intrude on their family bond. 

"Want to join us for a drink, Lycantant?" asks Diomika from beside him. "Drown your sorrows?"

Caine blinks. "What sorrows?"

Diomika rolls her eyes. "Oh I don't know, how about the way you're always moping around after the Captain? We're not blind, you know."

"It's not moping," says Caine, indignant. Then, "I don't know what you mean."

"Sure," says the Aegis liaison. "We were thinking the Bomb and Grapnel. Bound to be some Legion grunts there - nothing like a good fight to get things out of your system."

Garvey nods from beside her. "Sometimes you need to put 'em in their place," he rumbles.

Despite himself, the corners of Caine's mouth twitch upward. "I thought the Aegis were supposed to keep the peace," he says.

"Well, we're back on-duty in another fourteen hours," she says. "We can keep the peace then."

The atmosphere in the Bomb and Grapnel is as promised, grimy and relaxed, full of off-duty soldiers having some fun. But Caine isn't in the mood.

"I know I'm not enough for him," Caine says to the droid at the bar, slumping over his sixth drink. "But I thought, somehow I thought I could have a pack of my own." He scrubs at the tattoo on his right shoulder, continual reminder of the Squad he couldn't protect enough.

A chair flies over his head from the promised bar fight, but he ignores it. 

"I sympathise with your emotions, client/customer," says the droid. "That will be another twelve credits, please."

Caine swipes his wrist across the bar to pay. From behind him comes the crash of breaking glass. 

Caine feels a sudden hand grab his shoulder and whirls around, reflexes only a bit slower than normal. "Stop - moping - and help me out - " gasps Diomika, seizing a stool from beside him and hurling it toward an auggie crouched in front of a belligerent-looking full-sized Lycantant. The auggie dodges aside easily. "Oh, shit," she says belatedly.

"Wasn't part of your stupid quarrel," snarls the Lycantant, low and dangerous. He pushes his drink aside. "Am now."

Caine says, "My friend didn't mean to hit you," in an attempt to defuse the situation. He glares at Diomika. "Did you."

The Lycantant looks him over with a familiar expression of puzzlement bleeding into contempt. "Stay out of this, freak."

Caine feels his lips draw back over his teeth. His hackles rise. "Don't call me that," he says.

"What are you going to do about it?" asks the Lycantant, contemptuous.

Caine comes up swinging.

**Which I am forbidden to see.**

The man Caine's interrogating has pissed himself. The reek of fear fills the room.

This isn't worthy of the name justice.

Caine tries again. "What else did you take?" he asks. "Just tell me."

The augmented-human merchant is moaning through thick lips and Caine feels a stab of disgust at himself. The man clearly isn't a master criminal. Caine needs a drink so very badly.

"The Entitled you stole from will get this out of you," Caine says, weary. "They have ways worse than mine of getting you to talk. If you tell me now, you'll spare yourself some pain - "

He's interrupted by the door sliding open. 

The seneschal who enters has a pale pointed face and a nervous manner. "Thank you Mr Wise, please leave us now," he says politely.

"We'll take it from here, dog." The arrogant voice is familiar, rasps a half-forgotten nerve. 

It's the Entitled responsible for Abukesh. Caine turns around to look at him, sees a youthful figure clad in black and gold. A metallic scent, like poisoned blood. He's never been this close to an Entitled before.

"Let's start by putting out one of his eyes," says the Entitled. 

The merchant starts to weep, silently, and Caine's filled with such intense anger he doesn't feel in control of his body. There's a strange ringing in his ears. This god - this petty child - this is the one who destroyed the lives of his Squad - Caine's rational mind blinks out.

The Entitled isn't even looking at him when Caine lunges.

The last thing he remembers is the taste of blood.

**The Hanged Man.**

The chains in the Condemned Hold are heavy. He's hanging upside down, pain in his head. It's too difficult to move, and even breathing takes effort.

Coming down from his adrenaline-spike Caine feels shaky, weak as a newborn pup. Perhaps they're going to execute him soon.

"Just tell me why you did it," asks Stinger.

Caine wishes he could look away. "I was stupid," he says again. This feels too big for apologies, so he doesn't try to make one. What could he possibly say?

"I used to think you had some kind of genius for falling down a hole and coming out with the gold ring," says Stinger. "I guess you had to make up for that somehow, huh?"

Caine draws a painful breath. "I don't know why I did it," he admits. "There's something wrong with me."

Stinger scrubs a hand across his face, golden eyes looking tired. "Well, I'm bailing you out," he says.

What?

"I've told them it was my responsiblity. You were under my command when you attacked him. We'll be court-martialled together, and maybe my war-record will make up for your stupidity." The Captain turns and walks away.

"Wait. Stinger! You can't do that, Stinger! Don't be a fool, think of your daughter!" shouts Caine to his Captain's disappearing back. He doesn't get an answer, just echoes.

**Fear death by water.**

The court-martial has them in crystal tanks, suspended in front of the Judge. She's encrusted in steel and diamond circuitry, glittering angrily when she moves even a finger. Her costume reminds Caine unpleasantly of a nanite swarm. If she finds them guilty, the tanks will completely fill with water and execute them on the spot, it has been explained to Caine. Efficient.

He looks at Stinger, treading water in the tank beside him. The Captain doesn't meet his eyes. But the tanks are touching, so Caine knows he can hear him.

"You could still get out of this," says Caine. "Tell them I went rogue. Tell them you never trusted me. I'm a mutant. Something went wrong with my genomgineering, you couldn't have known it would happen."

The Captain doesn't say anything.

"Please," whispers Caine.

The Judge is announcing the preliminaries to the case. They'll be here in the tanks a while longer, as she deliberates over their fate. The surface of the tank feels cold against Caine's hands as he tries to keep himself afloat. There's no dignity to it. That's the point. He's free to bang against the transparent crystal all he wants, to scream protests, to make whatever gestures he wants to the courtroom behind them packed with curious onlookers. They can't hear him, but they can see him.

Caine stays as still as he can, instead, moving only enough to keep his head above water. He wants to show - just for a little while longer - that he's capable of restraint. That he's not a complete monster.

The Captain speaks after Caine has given up waiting for an answer. "If you think I'm going to abandon one of my most loyal soldiers," he says at last, "You're dumber than I thought you were."

The sentencing is brief.

"Caine Wise. The normal sentence for your crime is death. But this court considers that your defective genomgineering has rendered you incapable of taking normal responsibility for your actions. Therefore, you shall be clipped and stripped of your wings and exiled to Deadland. Your memories of the attack itself shall be erased. You are no longer a member of the Skyjacker Corps. Your Legion rank shall be made void - "

Caine can't hear the rest of her summation. He's not going to die after all, and that feeling is strangely painful. He'd reckoned this would be it, and maybe he'd done enough for a lifetime already. It's tiring to think of carrying on. And Caine has heard fearful things about the Deadland, strange things.

His focus returns as he hears the name of the Captain.

"Ferhan 'Stinger' Apini. Your poor judgement in allowing this corrupted splice to have contact with an Entitled means that you are no longer worthy of serving in the Skyjacker Corps. Your ship command is revoked. Your record of long service is noted, and your discharge shall be with the normal honours. But to remind others not to make the same mistakes you shall be publicly clipped and stripped of your wings. Ownership of the minor child Kiza Apini shall revert from the Legion to you, as it is considered she may carry the same flawed judgement genetically. She is forbidden to serve in the Legion. You are no longer a member of the Skyjacker Corps. Your Legion rank shall be demoted - "

Inside the glass next to him, Stinger is howling. Caine's never heard him make a noise like that before.

Caine stops kicking, stops treading water, lets himself fall to the bottom of the tank. The water ripples silver above his head. Sound is quieter down here, dulled. Caine lets out his breath, sees the stream of silvery bubbles flow past. Maybe he should just stay down here, let himself drown. That would have been better than letting Stinger and Kiza suffer this on his behalf.

But his survival instinct is too strong. With burning lungs and red spots rising up in front of his vision, Caine kicks off the bottom of the tank and gasps for air, just as they begin to drain it. He's left soaked and ashamed, crouched on the floor of the tank, heart heavy. Behind him in the crowd, on the upper gallery, he catches a glimpse of Kiza crying.

**I had not thought death had undone so many.**

Deadland isn't what Caine thought it was. He'd pictured a penal colony, prison planet, had tried to prepare himself to fight to prove he's worth leaving alone. In a place like that, one runt alone could die quickly if he wasn't careful. He'd pictured learning the ways of the guards, perhaps even planning a break-out. Where in the Universe he could even run to, he didn't dwell on.

But there's no planet here. Just a strange drift of personnel pods in space, thousands upon thousands of them, slowly turning as they orbit this nearly dead star. The ship drifts closer.

The door to his cell opens. "Let's ice this one quickly," says one of the Wardens. "He's trouble."

They have some sort of medical apparatus with them. Caine begins to struggle against his chains, the fresh wounds on his back throbbing, but a single sting to his neck leaves him paralysed, helpless.

He tries to keep his eyes focused on the porthole, tries to work out what those pods are doing out here, what here is. One of the Wardens notices him doing it and laughs, dry echoing. "You thought you were going to escape, hm," it says, amused. "No one escapes from cryostasis. No one ever comes back. Unless the Entitled want them back, of course."

"But I don't think they'll be bringing _you_ back," adds another Warden, silent grey Keepers behind him readying some sort of personnel pod like the ones outside. There can't be enough of an air supply in that to last more than twelve hours, surely. Unless he isn't expected to breathe. 

"They leave the traitors dead," agrees the first Warden, leaning over him.

It's so cold it burns.

**That corpse you planted last year in your garden**

The light burns Caine's eyes, blurring. For a moment he doesn't remember who he is, where he is. He vomits, icy liquid pooling by the feet of the one who's brought him here, the one he has to obey.

That one's brow wrinkles with distate. "You were a Hunter, yes?"

Caine can't quite remember how to speak. 

"Yes, my lord," says the deer splice beside him, twitching a brown ear. "This one is on file as the best Hunter in the Legion, before he was frozen. No-one's surpassed his record."

"Good. I need you to find a girl for me, Hunter," says the lord, the Entitled. He wears a jewelled cloak that sweeps down to the ground behind him, out of place here in this metal chamber.

He did something bad, something wrong to an Entitled. Why can't he remember it?

"She's on Earth," says the deer splice. "It is very important that she be located quickly. In return, we are willing to offer you a pardon."

Caine shakes his head, stubbornly. Everything still isn't clear in his mind, but he knows that can't be enough. He doesn't matter. But he's wronged someone else. Worse than wronged, destroyed him. Stinger.

Lord Titus waves a hand. "Offer him the other inducement."

The deer splice twitches an ear. "We could also extend a full pardon and reinstatement to your former CO, Captain Apini. Only in return for your fullest co-operation, of course. You might be interested to hear that he's serving on Earth as a minor marshal, these days."

Reinstatement. He could get those iridescent golden wings back for Stinger. Set everything right.

"Well, what do you say to my lord Titus?" she asks.

"Yes," manages Caine. "I'll find her. Yes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess every fic writer has one 'The Wasteland' fic in them. This is mine.
> 
> Bonus points if you can spot all the TS Eliot references!

**Author's Note:**

> I guess every fic author has one 'The Wasteland' fic in them. This is mine.
> 
> Bonus points for spotting all the TS Eliot references!


End file.
